The Minutemen, boasting
one of hardcore's most competent and creative line-ups
(Dennes Boon on guitar, George Hurley on drums and Mike Watt on bass),
wove a spiderweb of soul, jazz, funk and rock'n'roll around their
syncopated, fractured, disjointed tunes. Borrowing the pagan impetus from
hardcore, the harsh quirkiness from the new wave and the cerebral,
and the convoluted indulgence from progressive-rock, the Minutemen
concocted the miniature hardcore shrapnels of Punch Line (feb 1981 - nov 1981)
and What Makes A Man Start Fires (jul/aug 1982 - jan 1983).
The acrobatic primitivism of these albums became even more neurotic and atonal
on Double Nickels On The Dime (nov 1983/apr 1984 - jul 1984), one of the most ambitious
recordings of the decade, a veritable encyclopedia of musical styles revisited
from the point of view of a spastic genius reminiscent of
Captain Beefheart and the Pop Group.

After Boon's untimely death in 1985, the survivors hired a new vocalist,
renamed themselves fIREHOSE (1), released
Ragin' Full On (oct 1986 - nov 1986) and pursued a more conscious program to refound
the song format, except that
R.E.M.-like folk-rock took over Minutemen's unpredictable structures.

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